Sunday, May 2, 2010

Our last foray as part of the New River Birding & Nature Festival was to the high mountains of the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area. This is a magical bowl nestled within towering misty mountains that push to nearly 4,000 feet above sea level. The aptly named bog is full of cranberry and other floral goodies, and many species of birds that are rare breeders this far south nest here.

We were there, ostensibly, for the birds, and our group found many goodies. I'll share more about the feathered set later, but a magical little butterfly nearly trumped all.

Early spring at Cranberry Glades means golden carpets of Marsh-marigold, Caltha palustris. I suspect many a local nature buff makes the trip up here just to admire this spectacle. But, on this day, it wasn't only the people who found the "marigolds" alluring.

After catching up with the bulk of our group after a photographic diversion, someone showed me an image of a little butterfly on their camera. It's hard to make out details on digital camera view screens in bright sunlight, but I knew it was a hairstreak that I hadn't seen before. We headed back down the boardwalk to the area of discovery, and lo and behold, there was a gorgeous White M Hairstreak nectaring just where the group had left it.

White M Hairstreak, Parrhasius m-album. That's an odd, cool scientific name. The source of both the common name and scientific epithet are obvious: the white line forms a near perfect M just above that red dot on the hindwing. To me, the reddish mark looks like a little apple.

This hairstreak has a broad distribution, but seems to be rare and local for the most part. Butterfliers get quite excited whenever they encounter one of the tiny beasts. Oaks are the host plant, so there is no shortage of appropriate plant material to support the butterfly. I suspect White M's are considerably more common than suspected, but perhaps only rarely venture from the tree canopy down to our level.

I shudder to think how many photos were snapped of this butterfly. Here, Julie Zickefoose braves the quaking springy soil to procure some images.

Quite a throng eventually crowded around the butterfly, everyone anxious to admire the little insect. For its part, the White M completely ignored us. Major props to Donna Hershberger, far left, for initially spotting it and alerting the rest of us.

While the undersides of this species are rather dashing and sport the namesake white M, the upper wings are much showier. Unfortunately, hairstreaks rest with their wings tightly closed, so that we couldn't see the glorious azure blue upperwings. As someone pointed out, White M's suggest small Blue Morphos when they fly, and it was the flash of brilliant blue as the butterfly flitted by that drew Donna's attention.

So, after everyone had sated themselves with photographs, Julie grabbed an old Cinnamon Fern rachis and attempted to prod the butterfly into flight. So smitten was it with the nectar of the buttercups that a good push was required, as seen in the above video. Watch it closely, and you'll see the stunning explosion of blue when it finally takes wing.

6 comments:

Lest I be labeled a butterfly abuser, I want to add that the obliging little creature merely circled and came back to the same marigold patch after his rude ouster. Thanks for these WV posts, Jim--they're delightful! As was taking in the splendors of the bog with you!

Ha! If anyone would be the tormentor of butterflies, it would be me. Remember, I'm the one that suggested giving it a prod. But, goading a butterfly into a short flight in order to admire its full majesty is better than netting it and impaling it in a pin.

And I agree, Erik, I don't think it possible for a photo or illustration to bring true life to that brilliant flashing blue.

Hi Jim, My friend, Connie Toops, referred me to your blog. Good stuff! She also showed me the GREAT Ohio spider guide. What a delight to be able to read pearls of information about those fascinating creatues! Where might I be able to get a copy of the spider guide? -Pat

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About Me

I am a lifelong Ohioan who has made a study of natural history since the age of eight or so - longer than I can remember! A fascination with birds has grown into an amazement with all of nature, and an insatiable curiosity to learn more. One of my major ambitions is to get more people interested in nature. The more of us who care, the more likely that our natural world will survive.

About the photos, and permission to use

All photographs on these web pages are the exclusive property of Jim McCormac, and are protected under United States and International copyright laws. The photographs may not be copied, reproduced, stored, distributed or manipulated without written permission. All rights are reserved.

If you contact me requesting free photos, the reply may be long in coming :-)

I've been taking photographs for a few decades, but never became fully interested and engaged in photography until 2003. That's when I got my first digital camera. Since then, photography has become a passion and a steadily growing addiction. If you delve back far enough into this blog, you will see photos that were made with a variety of Panasonic point & shoot bridge cameras. Then came a Canon Rebel DSLR, followed by a Nikon D7000. I've since returned to Canon, and use their gear almost exclusively. My camera bodies are a Canon 5D Mark III, which is an awesome full-frame sensor camera, and a Canon 7D Mark II. The latter is a 1.6 crop factor camera, and I use it almost exclusively for birds and distant wildlife.

The lens bag includes the following Canon lenses: 100mm f/2.8L-macro; the sensational but bizarre MP-E 65 mega-macro; a 180mm f/3.5 macro; a 16-35mm f/4L wide-angle; a 50mm f/1.4; a 100-400 f4.5/5.6 II; and a 500mm f/4L II, sometimes used with a 1.4 extender (which makes it a 700mm). I've also got a Tamron 70-200mm and Sigma 24mm Art (great lenses!). I do lots of macro, and my typical flash gear is the Canon Twin-Lite setup. If the gear needs three-legged stabilization, it is mounted on an Induro tripod, attached to an Induro Gimbal head. Finally, I've got a GoPro Hero, which is fully waterproof and can be used for underwater work. Sometimes I even use the camera or video feature on my iPhone 5S smartphone - it's amazing how good phone cameras have become.

Speaking, guiding gigs 2016

NOTE: Click on listed events for details (inmost cases).

January 16, 2016 - Ohio Ornithological Society's annual winter raptor day at the Wilds, Muskingum County, Ohio. Leading field trip.